Ground Combat Woes

PMCN · Post by **PMCN** » Sat Dec 02, 2000 12:20 pm

I have been playing Pacwar and am currently up to 1943 in my first game but I am having a bit of difficulty with the ground combat element of the game. I can invade islands just fine from the sea but land combat I can't figure out how to get my troops to attack. I currently have three combats going on.
1. A multinational force is in Buna (2 bases up from Stanely Mountain) which has 4 or 5 divisions of troops (mix British, Aussie, and American). I control the base and it has lots of supplies and the troops are all at 99 readiness. They have lots of air support set to attacking the troops in that area. They have a leader with an agression of 8 and to the best of my knowledge they have never once attacked the Japanese Parachute Bn that is currently "attacking" the base.

2. In Mandalay I have had up to 7 Divisions and 3 Armored brigades. An Agressive leader, and I have been pounding the depots/airfields and troops in that area. The only attacks that have been launched in this battle were by the Japanese (and they got slaughtered). But my troops do not attack.

3. I launched a seaborn assult on Ragoon, and after the initial assult wave the troops seem content to just sit there and let the Japanese attack them. I have 2 British divisions there, though they are not in a great supply state. I will correct that. Also why isn't the transport aircraft flying in supplies to these guys?

Anyway, could someone please give me some advice on how I actually get the troops to fight. From what the manual says they should be engaging in combat every turn. At the moment it is stalling the game for me.

Thanks.

mark the brit · Post by **mark the brit** » Sat Dec 02, 2000 1:58 pm

To get any land combat unit to attack it must be at least at 50% readiness also you must activate it .The amount of actual squads etc. that take part depends a lot on the commander of the units either at the base or at headquarters.The basic rule is higher land combat rating of the commander the better the result.Heres a tip to help you with those tough japanese land units.Isolate the unit by attacking the bases behind the target base with land and air units if possible capture the base if it appears that this base is just as tough
try the next one behind it .Just landing troops E.G. in rangoon lowers supply to units in mandalay,have your APs ready to evacuate them however because if you do not capture the base quickly your units will be out of supply.This tactic of landing troops and cutting the supply lines works also in New Guinea and other places were supply must pass through several bases.Air supply is somewhat dissapointing however in that you have no control over were the supply is delivered to,i seem to remember in the original game that the supply would only be airlifted to bases within a friendly figther ZOC but i am not sure if this still applies.My air transports in India supplied bases mainly in China ,Port Blair sometimes
other forward bases were supplied but very rarely .This also happens in other theartes i noticed that my air transports in Guadacanal supplied Green island with 40000 supplies which i moved with MCs only to find that the air transports started to resupply Green Island again.If anyone has a solution to this i would like to know.

sethwrkr · Post by **sethwrkr** » Sun Dec 03, 2000 10:37 am

I have a dumb question:

Have you activated your units?

Also if your troops will not atttack at under 50 readiness then how could you take an island if you do not capture the basxe on the first turn.

I am assuming that you must be incorrect, because I have taken islands after the first turn i land troops.

Seth

sethwrkr · Post by **sethwrkr** » Sun Dec 03, 2000 10:37 am

I have a dumb question:

Have you activated your units?

Also if your troops will not atttack at under 50 readiness then how could you take an island if you do not capture the basxe on the first turn.

I am assuming that you must be incorrect, because I have taken islands after the first turn i land troops.

Seth

Bing · Post by **Bing** » Sun Dec 03, 2000 9:25 pm

Originally posted by sethwrkr:
[I am assuming that you must be incorrect, because I have taken islands after the first turn i land troops.

Seth[/B]

Anything less than 70% experience factor of the landing force is asking for trouble. Per Seth, I take many islands first turn, if the objective is truly important, I make sure the exp factor is 80%+ AND I have a very capable landing officer in charge, which for the Japanese is invariably R. Tanaka. There are others, it is just that Raizo is the best.

BTW, troops engaged in island combat CAN be supplied and it DOES make a difference, but after the first turn here again it is leadership: First thing to do is assign a leader for the LCU with as high a rating as you can find, transfer one if need be.

If after a few turns no progress is made, do a rotation with fresh troops, that should do it, though they still have to be fairly high rated to do the mob. How do low rated LCU's get combat experience? By what we used to call "coral crunching", assign them to out of the way islands and let them slug it out.

Hope this helps,

Byron Inglesh

sethwrkr · Post by **sethwrkr** » Mon Dec 04, 2000 2:15 am

In the hint document.... I am being vague because I do not remember who wrote it and i do not want to look it up.......

It said that the task force leader has nothing to do with the land combat on the landing.

It goes on to state that the most important characteristic in a Transport TF leader was agression, since this made the Transport TF harder to turn away.

I am interested to know if you or someone else knows something I do not know. How do you know that the TF leader impacts land combat? Does anyone know? Hey Garry G., do you know?

Seth

Bing · Post by **Bing** » Mon Dec 04, 2000 3:45 am

Gary doesn't answer e-mails. Believe you are correct, Seth, the TF leader won't have much if anything to do with land combat. But if you dont have a good one, you may not have troops on the beach after their first turn, they may be back on the ships. That is why it is important to have a leader such as Tanaka for landings. You'll find they do have Land ratings, but most likely the biggest impact is their aggression. Why not have the best of both? A naval leader with a low Land rating isn't going to be as effective as one that has high rating. Just how the game engine handles the combat on first turn I don't know, perhaps the coding people do. I say send the best mahn.

sethwrkr · Post by **sethwrkr** » Mon Dec 04, 2000 4:11 am

I definately do not send tanaka. He is always leading whatever the badest SC task force is on my side.

You have not told me anything I do not know. You admit you do not know if land combat skill effects landings. The hints document says it does not. I think i will pass on risking MR T on landing. I like to use leaders that suck but have high agressivness ratings. That way if they get waxed, Oh well.

So the question still remains:

Does anybody know if TF comanders land ratings matter? Please no more, " Im not sure but just in case I put a BAMF in charge of em."

Seth

Bing · Post by **Bing** » Mon Dec 04, 2000 5:04 am

Originally posted by sethwrkr:
I definately do not send tanaka. He is always leading whatever the badest SC task force is on my side.

You have not told me anything I do not know. You admit you do not know if land combat skill effects landings. The hints document says it does not. I think i will pass on risking MR T on landing. I like to use leaders that suck but have high agressivness ratings. That way if they get waxed, Oh well.

So the question still remains:

Does anybody know if TF comanders land ratings matter? Please no more, " Im not sure but just in case I put a BAMF in charge of em."

Seth

Here's what the hint file says:
"b. Allied land leaders cannot command an amphibious assault only the naval leaders of transport TF carrying the attacking troops can affect the initial landings. If enemy resistance continues then an Army/Marine commander can be assigned to the base on the following turn.
Japanese HQ commanders command the troops making amphibious assaults (the aggressiveness of the Japanese naval leader commanding the transport TF is vital in determining whether the TF turns back under air attack though). "
You can take it from there.

sethwrkr · Post by **sethwrkr** » Mon Dec 04, 2000 6:15 am

To be sure, land combat units CAN be supplied on islands.

Their readiness rating will never exceed 48% until they capture the base. And if what a guy a couple of posts back said was true about no attack at under 50% readines then it would be impossible to capture a base after the first turn....because no attack.

Bing, I imagine that you and I know that is incorrect having been able to capture an island base after the first turn we got there.

sethwrkr · Post by **sethwrkr** » Mon Dec 04, 2000 8:45 am

Thanks bing. That clears up Transport command for me.

Seth

PMCN · Post by **PMCN** » Mon Dec 04, 2000 7:26 pm

Thanks for all the comments!

I believe the units are activated, they have a $ by their names...but if that is the mistake then it is easily corrected!

I have been attempting to isolate the bases, in buna I have been hitting the base up the chain with air attacks, Mandalay was harder but I pounded its airfields and depots into the ground. In part the attack on Rangoon was to cut off Mandalay's supply line.

For Buna I had been thinking of making a landing on the norther tip of the island and fighing south. I still hold the 3 ADBA bases (Timor and the 2 other small Islands) so I have lots of friendly airpower near by.

Thanks again.

Nightcrawler · Post by **Nightcrawler** » Mon Dec 04, 2000 9:13 pm

Originally posted by Paul McNeely:
I believe the units are activated, they have a $ by their names...but if that is the mistake then it is easily corrected!

The $ means they are inactive. When active there is no $.

Bing · Post by **Bing** » Mon Dec 04, 2000 10:18 pm

Hope the comments and quotes helped.

Regarding the role Readiness plays, it is not an easy subject. I think that perhaps the requirement for 50%+ readiness to MOVE a unit overland - therefore to bring it into combat with an enemy unit - is sometimes confused with the ability of a unit already in place to conduct combat.

Experience, leadership and to a certain extent supply status appear to be the most important factors for an LCU already in contact with the enemy. Once the unit has made contact, Readiness seems to refer more to the percentage of troops that will fight. Also Readiness affects losses, per the manual losses are divided by the terrain factor.

The problem with the above is it comes straight from the original manual, which was never reprinted, even in electronic form. When the manual was scanned into Acrobat form, for instance the addenda card that came with the game was not included. Plus the changes reflected in the card, we know there were dozens of other corrections made to the game shortly before release that aren't in the manual, even more corrections in the following versions of the game.

I'll say this: My LCU's WILL fight when in contact with the enemy, providing leadership and experience are good, this holds true even when readiness is below 50%. Sometimes they will attack even when supply isn't good, sometimes you can't do much of anything about the supply, as in the Burma-India locales.

If the foregoing has made a confusing situation worse, my apologies. But part of the appeal of PacWar, for some of us, has been you are never REALLY sure what is going to happen. Makes for an interesting game.

Bing

Nightcrawler · Post by **Nightcrawler** » Tue Dec 05, 2000 2:01 am

Originally posted by sethwrkr:
Does anybody know if TF comanders land ratings matter?

I found one instance in the rulebook when they matter a little bit (if you believe the rulebook). Under TF Preparation Point Increase it says:

"If the TF has a leader add that leader's appropriate rating (Air for Air Combat TF, Land for Transport TFs, otherwise naval is used - this number is the rating"

So I guess a good land rating would get your transport task force a few, like 5 or 6 max realistically, more preparation points.

The next line says something to the effect that if the TF HQ has 9+ PPs the TF gets 5+leader PPs, so it may matter a little a second time in PP allocation.

PMCN · Post by **PMCN** » Tue Dec 05, 2000 3:09 pm

Thanks all, I feel like a twit but I activated the units last night and sure enough ground combat occured with the British capturing Mandalay and the Japanese unit in Buna taking half casulties.
Now to just get that stupid task force to land its troops rather than dithering around due to land based air attacks...

RevRick · Post by **RevRick** » Wed Dec 06, 2000 2:05 am

Back to Mr. McNeely's original post. I have a suspicion of what may be causing the problem because I have encountered this in the past. You can have all the units in sight activated,(which is done on a unit by unit basis when checking on the Army section of the base) and they will not attack if they hold the base AND that base is selected as the Headquarters target. If the base in which the combat is held is also the selected target, all the effort of the base will be to defend that position. To make the forces attack, another target base farther up the line of attack must be selected as HQ target. (Interestingly, this does not seem to be the case on islands.) In the HQ menu on the bottom command bar, click onto the select HQ button, which will put you on the base at which that particular HQ is sited. Then, on the HQ button again, click on Set Target. That will direct you to click on a target base. When you do that, the target will be set for that base, and all your TF's created by the command will be directed to that base (So Be Careful.) Units will attack at under 50% supply, they will just not be very successful. You cannot move units from a base with less than 50% supply.
Hope this helps,

------------------
God Bless;
Rev. Rick, the tincanman

sethwrkr · Post by **sethwrkr** » Wed Dec 06, 2000 4:40 am

Paul once they start dithering you might as well turn back and start over. That task fore "retired". That is PW for PW.

Seth

babyseal7 · Post by **babyseal7** » Wed Dec 06, 2000 7:51 am

It helps to put a leader in charge of transport TF's with a high aggression rating as well as a high land rating. You won't get as much dithering around. With a cheesedick in charge or no leader, they sometimes won't have the cohones to enter an enemy AZOC.

PMCN · Post by **PMCN** » Wed Dec 06, 2000 1:45 pm

Hello all,
Thanks for all the advice again. I had started to wonder about that transport task force retiring all the time. I sent it in (to new Georgia), 3 or 4 times and it actually got to the hex but would not land its troops. To add insult to injury I even sent a carrier battle group to support it...I now have 2 injured carriers, sigh. Oh, well Shortlands Japanese airgroups are but fading memories

As chance would have it the Japanese main carrier force sortied into the area around Wake where my primary Carrier Battle Group is stationed and the resulting exchange of airpower was in my favor. I need to check but I think they lost a couple of CV-CVL and allmost all their aircraft were shot down. I was dissappointed in Adm Lee who didn't sortie with his BB force...which would have surely killed off the carriers in a surface battle. Though a miracle occured and a Liberator hit a CVL with a 500 lb bomb

during a LBA attack.
I need to take Woejie Island next so I can start ferrying in Marine Air Power from Johnston Island rather than thru the Midway-Wake chain.

Adm Crutchly is in charge of the task force in question (which is ANZAC) and from this performance is about to become a desk jock.

Otherwise ground combat is now going well, beyond the fact the British are suffering a sevre supply shortage. The troops in Buna just got odds of 121:1 so I suspect they will be advancing soon.

I have noticed that airpower is remarkably in-effective in ground combat. If you are lucky 60-100 or so bombers,dive bombers and fighters/fighter-bombers may kill a single tank or gun or squad of troops. This strikes me as a somewhat less than historically accurate.